The Family Recharge Station...

From the workshop archive, 2018 — when I first sat down on camera to ask: is my phone use productive, or is it controlling me?

The first step in overcoming a problem is to admit you have one.

The second is to design a way to change your behaviour, and this is how our Family Recharging Station came about.

Addiction may be a strong word, but my phone use definitely started to interfere in my daily routine. I have long argued that my phone use is productive, rather than something that controls me, but I had to put it to the test...

The day we launched the first Family Recharging Station, 2018. Same design, same conviction, same problem still unfolding.

The more I read about it, the more of a problem I had to admit I had.

This is a check-list I came across:

Indicators of problematic phone use

There is no cut-off point to show you are addicted to your phone which everyone agrees to but here are some indicators.

1. You spend continuous hours on the phone to play games, scroll through social media, open and close apps, text people to invite a chat, etc.
2. You frequently pick up the phone without any aim to check for notifications or see if something has changed in your social feeds.
3. Your online and offline behavior gets more integrated and you don’t know what you did in the digital reality or the material reality.
4. You get restless if your phone is dead or has a low battery, is out-of-coverage, or is low on data/balance.
5. You treat your phone as a security blanket without which you get uncomfortable in social gatherings.
6. Your day-to-day activities take a backseat, relationships are strained, and you can’t focus and commit to the important things in your life.
7. You feel bad about yourself and you go online to feel good but you end up feeling worse looking at what others are doing. Such compulsive phone use is likely to emerge from other mental health issues.

source: www.cognitiontoday.com

It does not look as if I am alone in this. Not only did I see a similar behaviour in my children (and they do not have the excuse of keeping an eye on the order flow in a small business). Research on this subject is worrying:

As soon as we started making our Family Recharging Stations we were inundated with orders of inspiring engravings to overcome a widespread habit.

What the people who study this say.

You don't need our statistics from 2021. The psychologist, the actor and the parenting writer above are saying it more clearly than we ever could. We just make the wooden answer.

And notice who this is for. We don't sell the Recharging Station to children — we make it for the adults in the room. Boundaries only work when you live them. The Station works because the grown-up puts their phone in it first, and the family follows.

The early days — photographing the first Recharging Stations, 2017.

As with all new technology it takes time to find a healthy way to incorporate it in our daily lives. The data above suggests we have some way to go.

However, did you know that in the 1500s some considered the mass distribution of printed books to be dangerous..? Now we do anything to encourage children to read.

What is the correct etiquette for phones and devices? I think we are still working it out... And that means we can still be part of shaping it for the future!

Suggestions for healthy device use:

1. No phones at the dinner table.
2. Do not keep your phone on your person when you are at home.
3. Keep your phone out of sight when you are socialising.
4. Schedule times when you do not use your phone.
5. Do not keep your phone on your bedside table.

This is exactly what we had in mind when we designed our Family Recharging Station as a place to keep your devices when you are recharging the batteries physically and metaphorically.

Good design is all about making us live our lives better and these Device Parking/Recharging stations are great for enforcing the standards you want for your family...